


Shared Warmth

by shadhahvar



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Mornings, One Shot, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Spooning, Survival Training, Training Camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:05:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1432873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadhahvar/pseuds/shadhahvar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean has fleeting, high hopes after the 104th finishes their hike out to the freezing winter barracks.  With more limited space than normal, people are being told to snuggle in three to a bunk, and there's a slight chance Mikasa might end up on his bunk!  </p><p>Only like much the rest of Jean's life, nothing goes according to plan.  A long cold winter night and morning turns into a series of new-bedmate mishaps and petty irritants, but on the bright side, at least it isn't permanent!</p><p>Main shenanigans are with Jean, Armin, and Annie sharing a bed, opposite to Mikasa, Eren, and Connie.  Ymir, Krista, Sasha, and Mina are all mentioned in passing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shared Warmth

They'd had to hike way the hell out to the smaller cabins in preparation of further "survivalist" training, preparing the trainees for the reality of all-weather fighting. They'd be training with their 3DMG in the morning. In Jean's opinion, it was all a load of bullshit. He wouldn't have to be worrying about any of this closer to the King. The Military Police had important duties, but it was incredibly unlikely they'd be facing down Titans, let alone in the winter, in falling snow and on ice.

Who'd be insane enough to run a scouting mission at a time like that anyway?

The only bright side he could see was the fact both men and women were bunking down together for the duration of this exercise. It was a (more than) mildly exciting prospect, not that anything would be happening. But he had to admit, three to a bunk as they'd need to be, there was at least a slight chance it could be interesting. Right?

Couldn't blame a guy for hoping. Or holding his breath while Mikasa walked by, Eren already plopped down on a bunk across from Jean. He was talking about something - who cared, Jean tuned him out when he could - with Connie sitting behind him and rubbing his arms in the cold. Armin and Mikasa stood nearby, Armin slightly closer to Eren's bunk than Mikasa. 

Oh. Oh man. There was the slightest chance in the universe that Mikasa might end up here, right here, away from Eren and his whole shittiness (if a length of floor counted as being 'away' from anything) sleeping in the same place as Jean.

It'd be the next best thing to having Krista sit down without Ymir in tow. 

Bunks were filling fast as the cold members of the 104th filed in, stamping snow off their boots and hanging cloaks and packs where they could. Most the bunks were filling fast, with those closer to the door taking longer.

He didn't see Annie coming until too late. 

Annie, fortunately or otherwise, saw Jean. Her eyes narrowed, scanning for anyplace else. She might have been able to convince Mina to switch with her, but she looked well ensconced elsewhere with two other girls from the trainees. Maybe Sasha?

No, Sasha had just been pulled down by Ymir, completing her defense around Christa, who was pushed up against the wall.

Options were filling up fast, and that's when it hit her.

The simple solution.

"Are you sleeping here?" she asked Mikasa, an expression of polite curiosity on her face as she gestured toward Connie and Eren's bunk. Eren looked up at her, vaguely surprised.

"Hey, Annie."

Mikasa just glared. "Yes."

Jean deflated where he sat, pulling off his socks. If he had any more faith in humanity to wipe off on the walls of the place itself, he'd do so. Connie was sadly out of reach, and already wearing most of Jean's faith.

_Jerk._

Annie took Mikasa's answer in stride. It'd been what she expected. "Then Armin, you'll be with Jean?"

Jean looked up, frowning. 

"It'd make sense." Armin looked around the room, hearing the barked order for lights out in five. He encountered the same problem that Annie had noticed, where most the bunks had been filled. 

Connie shrugged, wondering why any of them were discussing this when it had an obvious solution of flopping down and sleeping like the dead until morning. "Wake me up when breakfast's ready," he said, turning toward the wall and burying himself under the shared blankets.

Mikasa's lips pressed into a line. Four people would be a stretch, but... she glanced back to Annie.

Annie kept her face perfectly bland.

"On the outside?" This time it was Mikasa's question.

Annie could guess as to why, based on the fact Mikasa was staring her down. She sat down on Jean's bunk, pulling her boots off along with her lower straps. "His choice," she said with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "It'd be warmer in the middle."

Jean wasn't sure he particularly liked Annie. She wasn't the most approachable person in the 104th, for all she was one of the more capable ones. She stuck to herself, she didn't speak up much, and her opinions were generally blunt when they were expressed. He was entirely unaware of how some of those opinions had expressed themselves through Eren and Eren's actions, leading to a shift in Jean's own perceptions of the importance of training as a soldier. 

What Jean was sure about was that he'd rather not be cuddling Armin, if he was only getting the one damn chance to sleep next to someone _female_ and pretend like it was actually _fun_.

Maybe the idea would be fun.

Maybe.

Maybe he'd just get an elbow to the solar plexis.

_Hmm._

"Lights out in three!"

Mikasa and Armin both moved, sitting on opposite bunks and working at their own shoes. Straps were hung off pegs on the sides of the bunks, or tossed to the floor (those people would be getting reamed in the morning), and the great debate of who was sleeping where seemed over for the moment.

In fact, it seemed entirely over when Annie pushed further back into the bunk, settling next to Jean without touching him in the slightest. It left less than a third of the room for Armin, in part because Jean wasn't up against the wall, but she either didn't notice, or didn't care.

Armin did notice, but he declined to say anything. He didn't think of himself as needing terribly much space, and besides, it was too cold in this building to worry about things like sharing space with fellow trainees. Shared body heat was going to be a necessary part of conserving enough warmth to keep all of them from freezing.

It would be odd in a way, when he considered the years where it'd been him and Eren and Mikasa on their own, huddled together and shivering until they were warm enough to stop, but not all that odd in the end. He knew Jean well enough, and Annie wasn't an unfamiliar face. Even if they'd both been strangers, what was there to fear?

Warmth?

Yeah, he'd hate that tonight all right.

A few cursory good nights were exchanged as the lights out call was given, and everyone collectively settled under the blankets to various degrees of comfort and predictability. Aside from someone who started to snore, and the softer murmur of voices discussing small thoughts and complaints about the coming trials, everyone settled in with minimal fuss.

Mikasa couldn't even glare through the scant light filtering through the windows from the brown, stormcloud-covered night skies outside.

The trouble didn't start until later. Hours later.

First, Jean kept flinching away from the cold feet that'd find his shins and press against them. He cursed the first few times, blaming Annie, who only glared at him and told him to endure the temporary chill.

He grumbled, pulling further away, which suited Annie just fine once the gap in the blankets was closed off toward the top. With minimal heat loss, she didn't care where Jean decided to flop himself for the night.

Second, Annie woke up to have Jean's arm flopped over her face, extending further to flop over Armin's too. It was as if the larger boy had tried to spoon both of them, figuring their shoulders were around the levels of their ears. She grimaced, reaching her arm out of the nest of warmth created by three people's trapped bodyheat beneath the blankets to push Jean's arm up and over, past her head.

She paused, then pushed Jean's arm once more, so that it cleared Armin's head entirely as well.

Third, Armin woke to find Annie shaking his shoulder, hissing his name next to his ear.

"Mmhuh?" he mumbled, eyes half open. She was making a request that he didn't quite catch.

She repeated herself. "Chamber pot." 

Oh, right. He stifled a yawn, nodding his head, enduring with her clambering over him to reach the open walkway. He was almost asleep again when she returned, just awake enough to respond to a slight push and another question he didn't actually hear.

Armin scooted over nonetheless, backing himself up into Jean. With what might have been thanks, Annie slid under the blankets, bringing a rush of cooler air that made him groan. There was no second apology, though Armin at least didn't complain after jumping when Annie's cold feet brushed by his warm ones. 

Jean's arm snaked back over them both, closer to their chests, and Armin tucked one of Annie's feet by his calf. Mikasa was the one who usually did the same for him. He always hated having cold feet after a late night bathroom break.

If Annie lay particularly still after that, neither bunkmate seemed to notice.

By the time the pre-dawn light was spilling through the frosted windows, each bunk revealed a trio of huddled figures splayed over or around each other. Some were spooning, others were buried entirely under covers, yet others had flopped over on top of at least one of their neighbors.

Jean was drooling into Armin's hair. Armin had yet to notice. Annie was curled up against his other side, chin tucked down, feet entangled with his. Jean had tried to get a leg over Armin and Annie, only to settle for spooning closer to Armin when that'd proved more difficult than his sleeping self had wanted to bother with.

Armin's arm had slipped over Annie's waist during the night, pulling her closer as Jean had pulled him closer in turn. She was the first to notice, blinking awake to find she was holding an arm against her chest. 

She blinked at that arm, taking a moment to identify it by turning her head. Slighter shoulders than Jean's meant it must be Armin's. She glanced down, then carefully moved it out from where it was nestled between her breasts, lifting her arm to move his back toward him, letting it rest against her back.

She wiggled to the side, slipping further out from under the blankets and moving to sit up. She looked around the room, noting who was waking up, and who was still snoring.

_Connie._

She brushed some of her hair out of her face, the vast majority looking more shaggy than normal. A few strands stuck up at odd angles in the back, further signs that she hadn't had a chance to brush through her hair with even her fingers yet this morning. 

Eren yawned as he walked back toward his bunk, blinking at the sight of Annie slipping out of bed. "Morning Annie," he said. "You look funny with your hair down. At least it's short."

Annie leveled an unblinking stare on Eren, not in the mood for his blunt style of speaking at this hour. Eren was oblivious.

Then she moved, a fluid forward motion and sweep that had Eren on his back on the floor, gaping up at the ceiling with the breath knocked out of him.

"Morning Eren," she said in turn, walking past him as Mikasa slid out of bed and frowned behind her, kneeling down to help Eren up. Armin was already waking, Jean not far behind, given the sudden yelp as he pulled back from Armin and sat up, spilling blankets off the both of them. The sudden cold woke both boys up quite spectacularly.

"Armin! Why are you right there?!"

"We're sharing a bunk, why wouldn't I be?" He lifted a hand to his hair, feeling a cold, wet spot. "Did you drool on me?"

"No!"

Another busy day in the 104th had just begun!


End file.
